Twelve years ago, shortly after arriving in New York City from her native Milwaukee to study music at Columbia University, Polly A had a transcendent musical moment.

She was attending a Prince concert at Madison Square Garden on the late singer's Musicology tour. When he strapped on an acoustic guitar and began to sing, she was completely overcome with emotion. "It was so spiritual," Polly A recalls of that life-changing moment. "I had goosebumps. It inspired me so much."

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Thanks to Prince's performance, the longtime singer began to understand how music is not only an artistic pursuit but also can help to bridge cultural divides and unite us all. She wanted to do that herself. "The ability to do that is my motivation," says Polly A, who is set to release her debut EP, Ghetto Gold Dream, on August 26. "I pray one day to be able to make people feel the way Prince made me feel that day."

She's off to a good start: in addition to having written songs for the likes of Alicia Keys and J Cole, Polly A recently signed with Adam Levine's 222 Records ("Adam is so cool! Beyond what I would have ever thought"), and has steadily carved out an impressive solo career on the strength of her soulful pipes and intuitive lyrical prowess. Today, the blossoming singer-songwriter premieres her evocative, visually stunning new music video for the title track from her EP exclusively on ELLE.com.

The video for "Ghetto Gold Dream" sees the singer meandering through a rundown motel and, with the feel of a lucid dream, encountering what she says personifies the ghetto gold dream. But what exactly does she believe that to be? "A ghetto gold dream is perseverance," she explains. "It's being triumphant and having a situation that may not be the most ideal but making the most out of it."

It's a message that's very personal for Polly A. Born Meleni Smith to a Jamaican immigrant single mother, the singer says that while she wouldn't characterize her upbringing as "rough," she believes she had to work harder than other, more fortunate kids to achieve her artistic goals. "We definitely struggled," she says of her youth. "But as a child you don't know any different. It probably wasn't until I got older and understood the different classes they put you in. I felt it when I was pursuing my art and saw other people whose parents were able to help them out and pay for things and get them going, and I never really got any of that stuff. I had to do it all on my own."

Ben Cope

She'd been a singer as long as she can remember and had also tried her hand at poetry. But after discovering Fiona Apple's Tidal, not to mention artists from Sade to Marvin Gaye and Bob Marley, Polly A began turning her attention to songwriting. "I was like, Wow, maybe I can turn these poems into song," she says. "It was always important for me to write songs because all of my favorite artists were songwriters too. It was an extension of what you had to say to people [rather] than somebody giving you something to say. I always felt like I wanted people to hear me and hear my thoughts and my emotions and my perspective."

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Not surprisingly, then, Polly A is an oft-vocal presence on social media. This past week, in the wake of the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of law enforcement, she took to Twitter and wrote, "STOP FUCKING KILLING US!!!" A few days later, the singer is still emotional. "I literally was in tears when I was writing those tweets," she says. "We're all human. If we have the ability to have compassion for gorillas and alligators and non-human beings that are killed—and it is all wrong—you should definitely have the ability to care about your fellow human beings that are being murdered. You should at least have compassion for what we as a people are going through. And it's not just a black thing—we're human! If you witness somebody dying it touches you no matter what race you are. And if it doesn't, then something is wrong with you."

Ben Cope

She admits she's not one to shy away from social issues in her music, but clarifies that she doesn't necessarily see herself as a "leader" in regards to championing social or political causes. "I'm just speaking my truth," she says. "When something is that blatant and it's filmed and we're all watching it played over and over again, how can you not react? How much more can we take?"

For Polly A, writing songs, she says, is the best way to ensure she has a positive effect on the world. "I always write songs from that perspective," she says. "I try to find my truth that's also a universal truth. If it's a great song, anybody should be able to feel it."

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